


Believe (One More Time)

by luninosity



Series: Reunion [1]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Kisses, M/M, Reconciliation, School Reunion, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-08-01
Packaged: 2017-12-22 01:18:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/907191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt, Charles and Erik dated during college and had a bitter break-up right before graduation. It's five years later and they both meet again at their class's reunion for a weekend. Someone was even stupid enough to have them room with each other for the weekend...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Believe (One More Time)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afrocurl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl/gifts).
  * Translation into 中文 available: [[授权翻译]Believe (One More Time)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4185375) by [Shame_i_translate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shame_i_translate/pseuds/Shame_i_translate)



> Title from the Foo Fighters’ “Lonely As You”, this time.

They meet again in the summer.

They meet again in June, five years later.

They meet again on a too-hot evening, on a Saturday, between ridiculous yellow and blue balloons that frame the check-in table, old school colors and wistful nostalgia dancing in the hotel air-conditioning drift.

Charles looks at Erik. Erik looks at Charles.

Erik can’t find anything to say.

The music of five years ago billows out from the ballroom, along with laughter and slightly desperate confetti. Someone’s probably spiked the punch; it always was tradition.

Erik wants to say so many things. But his breath’s tangled up somewhere in his throat and he can’t talk, because that’s Charles gazing up at him, head tipped in that same infuriatingly adorable scrutinizing manner; that’s a soft blue sweater that shouts _academic!_ to the world and invites fingertips to explore fuzzy fabric; that’s the same dark hair, one strand leaping up at the back despite obvious efforts at containment.

The eyes are bluer than the sweater. Not bluer than he remembers; no, he’s seen those eyes every day, waking from dreams. Before he closes his own, at night.

Charles is standing a little stiffly, awkward in a way Erik doesn’t recall. Charles always had been concerned about propriety and appearances, but this…doesn’t seem like that. Charles would also never’ve revealed discomfort so plainly to the world.

There are too many words, and they trip over each other trying to get out. Astonishment. Desire, as ever; that was never their problem. Old familiar exasperation: what right does Charles have to be awkward here? When Charles was the one who ended the world between them? When Charles hadn’t been brave enough then to stand up and fight for the two of them and their right to be together, unashamed?

He’s aware that he’s been staring for too long.

So after all it’s Charles who gets in the first word, and the word is his name, very softly: “Erik.”

“…Charles.” Well, it’s not _not_ a word.

“You’re looking…well.” That same elegant accent, someplace between Oxford and New York, blurred and smoothed and polished by time. It’d made his mouth go dry the first time he’d heard it, offering a casually brilliant answer to a patronizing TA’s question in a freshman-year biology course. He’d been there to satisfy a breadth requirement; Charles, of course, had been pursuing genetics, young and wealthy and reckless as possible in order to cover up deep-seated bruises left by years of neglect.

There are more bruises, now. On his side as well.

Charles looks at the check-in table. The table refuses to provide any conversational assistance. “Are you…staying here as well? At the hotel?”

“I—yes.”

“In fact,” observes Emma Frost, sweetly holding out Erik’s name tag, “you two are sharing a room.” The enormous diamond glitters, unmissably, on her finger.

Erik says, “What?” because he must’ve misheard.

“We ran out of space.” Her smile’s not malicious, but it is avidly intrigued. “And your sister, Charles, said you wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh, no,” Charles says, faintly. “No, Emma, listen, I can’t—”

“Of course you can.”

“We don’t want to,” Erik agrees, even though he’s just a bit insulted at how promptly Charles raised the objection, and the self-centeredness of the phrasing. _I_ can’t, indeed. What if Erik doesn’t want to share a room with him either? But no, Charles hadn’t even asked. Charles wouldn’t know if Erik did want to share a room with him, which Erik decidedly does not, but that’s not the issue, the issue is that Charles just assumed, and now Erik is wondering whether he himself should’ve said yes just to prove the point.

He risks a glance at those stubborn blue eyes again. They’re different, but not in a way he can put his finger on. Weary, behind the ocean waves, and stripped down somehow, like ocean-scoured bone.

He finds himself suddenly wanting to ask how Charles has been coping with cold winter nights and summer air-conditioners turned up too high. If there’s anyone in his life who will make Earl Grey  tea for him, with extra sugar, after too-long sessions in a lab, or hide candied pineapple in his desk for the afternoons he forgets to eat.

“No,” Charles is saying, an edge of panic to that expressive voice now, “you don’t understand, Emma, I can’t ask Erik to—to do that, I’m not—”

 _That_ really is too much.

“Are you so opposed to sharing space with me overnight? I never knew you were that easily intimidated. Or perhaps I did.”

Charles goes pale under the freckles, for some not readily apparent reason. Emma, oddly enough, glares at _him_. As if he’s at fault here. Erik ignores the uncomfortable sneaking feeling that perhaps he is.

“Never mind. Charles, you’ll have to share with someone, I can put Erik in with Logan but—”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Charles says, to Erik. “You’ll only see what you want to see, regardless. We can share.”

“Charles,” Emma says.

“I’m sure.” With a half-smile, crooked and slightly bitter. “We can tolerate each other for one night, I’m certain. Keys, please, Emma.”

She sighs. But Charles leaves his hand outstretched; and she gives in. “First floor, of course. Down the hall from the lobby. Tell me if you need anything.”

“Of course.”

“Are you coming in to join the party?”

“Not feeling like it.”

“Oh, Erik. That’s the point, isn’t it? Catching up? Yes, after we stop by the room and drop off our bags, I think.”

Emma nods, accepting Charles’s answer, and waves them away.

The room is…not entirely usual. Erik explores, intrigued. He’s always been intrigued by quirks of architecture; if he’d not gone into engineering, and then somewhat inadvertently into politics, he suspects he might’ve been an architect. Too many passions; that’s always been his problem.

He watches Charles, out of the corner of his eye. Has Charles always walked so slowly, sat so cautiously on the side of a bed, each movement graceful but contained, as circumscribed as possible?

The electrical outlets all seem to be at odd heights. And the furniture seems to’ve been designed to be as discreetly out-of-the-way as possible. There’s only one bed, which he resolutely does not contemplate, though there is a pull-out monstrosity concealed in the loveseat. He pokes his head into the restroom. “…Charles?”

“Yes?”

“They’ve given us a disabled-access room, haven’t they?”

“Er…yes?”

“Odd. You’d think they’d reserve those for persons who need them…” But, then, Emma had said they were out of space, hadn’t she?

No answer from the bed.

“Charles?”

“Yes? Sorry, I was…thinking. About something else. Shall we go out and socialize?”

“You honestly care what they all think of you, five years later?”

“You don’t?” Charles lifts an eyebrow at him. “You, Erik Lehnsherr, youngest-ever science advisor to the President and openly gay equal rights activist? You can’t tell me you aren’t even remotely interested in walking out there and watching all the heads turn.”

“…that’s unfair. And yes, I am. Because awareness is important for the cause, Charles, you know that, if you’d ever think of—”

“Spare me the rhetoric, please. I’ve heard you make that speech before.”

“And you never listen—wait. You have?”

“Oh, Erik. I do occasionally glance at YouTube. And you’re not wrong, but you’d be more persuasive if you could manage to alienate fewer people. It’s an election year, and you could use the friends when the political climate changes. It’s likely to.”

“I suppose you would know that. Charles Xavier, omniscient socialite. How are the rich and famous?”

“I wouldn’t know. I keep in touch with the useful ones; hardly the same. But lately I’ve been buried in my work. Trying to get back into it, you understand. I have some catching up to do. And, yes, I would quite like to walk out into that room, tonight. Shall we go?”

“I—catching up?” He’d thought Charles had finished the PhD. Certainly that’d been the plan: hide in research, acquire a respectable teaching position, change the world through science while concealing his own socially unacceptable desires.

That’s unfair, though. He knows it is. Charles hadn’t wanted to actively conceal anything; had simply wanted to put off that confrontation, to deal with his own life and graduate school and future before taking on the world.

He’d said, we should wait, the night that Erik’d proposed, giddy with graduation and joy and freedom, the whole universe shining out before the two of them, hand in hand.

Erik had said words, too, in response. They’re etched on his heart.

He looks at Charles again, sitting there on the nondescript comforter in the blandly comfortable hotel room under the pale yellow lights. He’d been so angry, then. In love, and betrayed, and angry, that Charles didn’t want what he wanted, them against the world no matter what.

Out of nowhere, a thought that he should’ve had five years ago creeps into his brain. It says: you knew about his childhood. About his scars. How he learned to hide from monsters in the dark. Did you think about how much you were asking, when you asked that question?

“Charles,” he says, and then isn’t sure what words might follow that name, on his lips.

“We should go,” Charles says, and pushes himself to his feet, “before everyone drinks all the punch. I wonder what Sean and Alex managed to put in it, for the occasion.”

And so they walk out of the oddly accessible room, and down the hall, and back past Emma Frost and her reception committee. Erik holds the door open for Charles, an impulse; Charles glances up, seems about to say something, shakes his head.

When he takes a step inside, he’s smiling, barely noticeable, private and not directed at anyone else. Erik, watching, feels his heart perform a complicated twist, inside his chest.

He wants to know the reasons behind that smile. Wants to see Charles smile again.

It’s irritating and glorious and undeniable, that truth: he’s been missing that smile for five years.

Except not that smile. Not this particular expression. This isn’t an expression he knows.

Charles finds a table close to the door and settles into a straight-backed chair with a grimace. “This should be fine; I don’t plan to stay long.”

“You…don’t?”

“I’m afraid the legendary partying days are well and truly behind me. Not that I’m opposed to alcohol, mind you. But I won’t be performing keg stands any longer, if you’re worried about tonight’s roommate situation.”

“No,” Erik says. Something in his chest hurts. “No, I wasn’t. I—Charles, I never minded taking care of you. You did it for me on occasion. And the first time—the first time you kissed me you were drunk, and—”

“Thank you for reminding me.”

“No, I meant…” He gives up. Charles isn’t looking at him, anyway. Gazing out at the crowd, bodies dancing and drinking and partying like they’ve never left college, like they’re hoping for just one last night to relive the best moments of those years.

Charles had been drunk, the first time they’d kissed. At Charles’s own birthday party, in fact, at which the object seemed to be to get those blue eyes as intoxicated as possible and see who they’d be willing to make out with. Erik, invited because everyone on campus evidently had been, had lost his ride home to too many vodka shots and the toilet bowl, and had been picking his way past partygoers towards the back door of the house, resigned to walking across town in the dark and vaguely frustrated at the night and his purported host and the idiocy of everyone around him.

A hand had caught his elbow, and bright blue eyes’d looked up into his, and Charles’d said interestedly, “Oh, I don’t believe I know you, you’re absolutely beautiful, those eyes are a fascinating color, such an unusual genetic combination, may I kiss you, it is my birthday, you know,” and Erik’d been too surprised to move when warm lips had landed unerringly on his.

Charles had been drunk that first time, yes. But not the second time, in the morning, when they’d woken up still dressed and tangled together in Charles’s bed, memories of escaping upstairs and tipsy chess matches and laughter and Charles nodding off against Erik’s shoulder, Erik unsure what to do and unused to anyone calling him beautiful and nearly beating him at chess despite the alcohol and touching him so freely, so generously, so confident that Erik wouldn’t hurt him…

He’d meant to stay awake all night, just in case the party downstairs grew even more raucous and guests attempted to barge in. There was a lock on Charles’s door, and likely no one’d be sober enough to operate it. But still. While he was here, no one would be allowed to disturb sleeping blue eyes.

He’d woken up to those eyes inches from his own, studying him with delight. “You’re even more perfect in the morning,” Charles’d said, “did you really stay here all night, and you left my clothes on, and I think we need to have a rematch with that chessboard, and I also think I’d like to kiss you again,” and Erik’d said “Do you always talk this much in the morning,” and Charles had kissed him, laughing.

He’d meant that, all of that, just now.

Sean and Alex come running over, having spotted them from across the room. They nearly collide with Moira, who despite being one of Charles’s pre-him ex-significant-others is among the most sensible people Erik knows, and one of the few he could ever stand; she gives him a strange look, and then throws her arms around Charles. “So glad you made it!”

“Yeah,” Sean says, “we’re glad too,” and Moira looks up at him with a vivid smile, and then hugs Charles again. “How’re you doing?”

“Nearly done. One more year. I’ve already been talking to Columbia about job offers, though there’s no guarantee, of course…how’s the CIA?”

“Classified,” Moira says cheerfully, “but the food is terrible. I…didn’t expect you to be here with…well, hi, Erik.”

Erik shifts his weight, and grumbles, “Hello.”

“Oh, we’re not with each other. We’re simply…next to each other. For the time being. Alex, it’s been ages, are you still working with that teen counseling program, or…”

“I got my degree,” Alex says proudly. “Psychology. Helping troubled kids. I’m a superhero.”

“Yes, so you are.” Sincere, when Charles says it. Naturally.

“Everyone knows what you’re up to,” Sean says to Erik. “How does it feel, being famous?”

There’re a lot of answers he could give. The stock reply he’d used on Charles earlier, which he does genuinely believe: his own visibility gives authority to the equal rights cause, to all the men and women hoping to never again be persecuted for the people they fall in love with. It’s important. It’s meaningful. He’s influential.

He glances at blue eyes. “I’ve been fortunate.”

And Charles puts a hand on his forearm, seemingly unthinking. “Don’t be modest. You’ve made yourself into a role model. And your passion…that’s inspirational, Erik.”

Everyone looks at Charles, for that. Charles shrugs. “I can occasionally admit when I’m wrong.”

“No, you can’t.” Moira steps on Sean’s foot, too late. Alex snickers.

“I did say occasionally.” Charles takes his hand off Erik’s arm. The warmth lingers. Erik instantly wants the hand there again. “And Erik deserves the recognition. I’ve always believed that.”

“I want to talk to you,” Moira says. “Dance?”

“No,” Charles says, politely but incontrovertibly, “but I think Sean would, if you asked; Sean?” And somehow Moira and Sean end up on the dance floor, and Alex gives up on small talk and runs off to do more nefarious things to the long-suffering fruit punch, and Erik and Charles are alone.

Erik feels somewhat off-balance. It’s not even the fault of the punch. He hasn’t had any.

He sits down next to Charles, and tries to surreptitiously peek at those tropical-ocean eyes. Charles is smiling that peculiar tiny smile again, rueful, perhaps, or wistful, or resigned. He doesn’t know what to say to that smile.

He also wants to know why everyone seems so excited to see Charles, why people don’t seem surprised that he’s not finished with school and changing the face of science yet, why Emma Frost of all people pops by and offers to find him a more comfortable chair. There’s something going on that Erik doesn’t know about. This bothers him.

Other people come to find them, in ones and twos and throngs, making their myriad ways over to Charles’s chair. Hank McCoy, finishing up his surgical residency. Gabrielle, another of Charles’s ex-girlfriends. Pretty petite Angel, who is not an ex-girlfriend but kisses Charles anyway, “because I never did back then.”

She’s working as a professional dancer now. Broadway and everything. Smiles at Charles with playful unserious intent. Erik looks down and notices that his hands’ve turned into fists.

After a couple of hours of chatting and refusals to be pulled onto the dance floor, Charles shifts position in his rigid chair and then makes a noise that causes Erik’s confused heart to stutter in place.

“Charles—are you—”

“I’m fine, sorry—just realizing that Emma was right, she’ll love that—oh, _hell_ , this hurts. Sorry, I think I need to leave now, you can stay if you want…”

“ _What_ hurts? Charles, what’s going on?”

“It’s just I’ve been sitting for a long time, and sometimes my back isn’t—I don’t think this chair likes me very much, that’s all. If you might be willing to help me stand up, I can make it back to the room.”

“If I—” He gets an arm around those shoulders, tense with pain. “Do you need me to carry you?”

“No, it’s fine, I wanted to walk in here and I’m going to walk out again…probably should’ve brought the cane, though…”

Erik nearly drops him. “The _cane?”_

Charles twists his head awkwardly to meet Erik’s eyes. It’s a puzzled meeting on both sides. “All right, I knew you didn’t notice when I checked in, but really, I’m not sure why my choice of support deserves such a dramatic reaction. What were you expecting, the wheelchair? That’s very three months ago.”

“The—the—Charles, _what happened?”_

Puzzlement melts into shock, and then comprehension, at that. “Oh, Erik…I thought you’d heard. Well. I don’t know why I thought that, actually. I’m sorry. I was—”

“Charles Xavier!”

They both turn, Erik keeping his arm firmly in place.

“Sebastian,” Charles offers, civilly.

Sebastian Shaw looks him up and down. “They let you out of rehab, for this?”

“It’s called physical therapy,” Charles says, and then, under his breath, “moron.” Erik smothers a laugh, absurdly present despite all the emotions. Physical therapy? Rehabilitation? And Charles can barely walk…

There’s a horrible idea beginning to take shape in his head. He’s only got the dim outline so far. But it’s terrifying.

“And you’ve once again got Erik attached to your side. How does that work, Charles? I can’t imagine you’re much good in bed these days. Or does Erik enjoy himself with cripples? I’d’ve never guessed.”

Someone’s practically growling with rage, Erik realizes. And it’s him. “Leave him alone.”

“Like you did, you mean?” Sebastian shakes his head. “We all wondered, after the accident. Since you two were so close and all. But no one ever heard from you, Erik. Too busy telling the world it was wrong, too busy to care whether your boyfriend lived or died.”

The ground lurches under his feet.

Charles could have died. An…accident. And he’d’ve never known, because he’d closed himself off so determinedly, avoiding any mention of that name, those freckles, chessboards, blue eyes.

They’ve got something of an audience now. People watching in ghoulish curiosity. And he has to do something, has to say something, has to be there for Charles now when he obviously failed to be then—

“Sebastian,” Charles says coolly, “no one ever heard much from you either. But then getting fired from your own company—and, really, owning a strip club I’d not judge you for, but being caught on camera harassing your own employees, that’s rather pathetic—and begging me for a job, well. If insulting my sexual prowess makes you feel better about yourself, by all means continue.”

“You—” Sebastian appears to be choking on words. “I never asked you for a—”

“No, you applied for a…was it an administrative assistant position? secretarial work? …at the Sharon Labs facility, which is owned by the Xavier Corporation and incidentally named after my mother, and I suspect the board of directors will be less than impressed if I make a phone call or two. I don’t like doing so, you understand, but I would, for you.”

There’s some murmuring from the crowd. Also some scattered applause. People _remember_ Sebastian.

Erik would applaud also, but he’s supporting Charles with one arm, and the rest of his body’s just in awe.

“As far as my being good in bed,” Charles goes on, “not that it’s any business of yours, but…” A deep breath, a sideways glance, and Erik knows exactly what’s about to happen even though he can’t believe it. “I keep Erik perfectly satisfied, I think.”

And Charles kisses him.

Charles kisses him, in public, in full view of everyone, unabashed and spectacular and slightly flavored like alcoholic fruit punch, and the angle’s imperfect and there’re cameras flashing and wolf-whistles from the audience, and one hand wraps around the back of Erik’s neck and drags him in closer, and Erik inhales the scent of him, the taste of him, and dives in for more.

He’s in love with Charles, he always has been, and he never wants to surface again.

Charles’s legs give way, overwhelmed. Erik catches him and sweeps him up in both arms, off his feet like the best definition of a bridal carry, them crossing a threshold, and kisses him once more, a swift touch of lips to laughing lips.

Charles puts his head on Erik’s shoulder, and waves, regally. The crowd cheers even more.

“Right,” Erik announces, “we’re leaving now.” And they do.

Back in the quiet of the room, he sets Charles carefully on the bed. Sits down beside him, twining their fingers together, unwilling to let go, not knowing what to say as the first flush of the grand gesture ebbs, leaving empty hesitation in its wake.

Simple things, he thinks. The words he should’ve always been saying. “I want to help. If you’ll let me. What can I do?”

Charles smiles a little. “Come here?”

Erik stretches out gingerly on the bed next to him. Hears the sigh. “I meant hold me. My back hurts. Quite a lot.”

“I’m so sorry.” He scoots closer. Puts an arm around that smaller shape, so compact and familiar and beloved. After a second, starts rubbing tentatively at the tightness he can feel in coiled muscles. Charles gasps.

“Sorry—!”

“No, that was good, that feels—”

“Can I give you a massage?”

One blue eye peeks up at him, gauging his sincerity, sparkling with recognition. “Yes, I think you can. Thank you.”

“Charles, what happened?” He sits up, in order to do it properly. Gazes at his hands, touching Charles’s back.

“Accident…” Charles sounds drowsy, as Erik’s hands work. He’s tempted to remove the sweater; that’d make this easier, but he’s not certain he has the right to ask. “I was walking home from campus…at night…drunk driver…he hit a lamppost, after he hit me. Killed on impact.”

Erik wants to say that it’s deserved, but Charles might not appreciate that. He pauses, irresolute; after a second, that faded-English voice goes on. “As for me, well, it could’ve been worse. Fractures in my lower spine, my legs…they weren’t certain I’d walk again. But I wanted to.”

So straightforward. As if there aren’t months of agonizing pain and rehabilitation and effort behind those words.

He’d mocked Charles earlier for being afraid. He’d known nothing. Charles is the bravest person in the world. In the universe.

Charles makes a sound that’s almost a laugh, muffled by the pillows. “I told myself I’d walk into that reunion without any aid. I did, I suppose.”

“You’re incredible,” Erik says.

“I’m not. I was angry…for a long time I was angry. But it wasn’t changing anything. He’s still dead and I still need the wheelchair on very bad days and sometimes I hate that. But I walked in there tonight and I kissed you in front of everyone and I told you that you were right, because you are. About me. About me being scared, back then. And now. I didn’t want to share a room with you because I didn’t want you to pity me. I’m sorry.”

“…for what,” Erik says, after a moment’s shock, once he can find words, “kissing me? I want to kiss you. I’ve never stopped wanting to kiss you. And if I pity anyone it’s possibly Sebastian Shaw. You have a ruthless streak, Charles. I never knew.”

“I suppose I learned.” Charles sighs. “I hate to ask this, but could you possibly find my Vicodin? Side pocket, small bag.”

“Here.” He offers water, too. He doesn’t know what else to try. What might be accepted. Charles kissed him, but that was a gesture, brilliant and defiant. And Charles sounds so tired now.

He takes the water, when Charles hands it back. Sets it on the bedside table. Then, deliberately, turns out the lights, and slides down onto the bed, so that they’re face to face in the not-quite-dark, and takes Charles’s hand. “I wasn’t right. Then, or tonight. I’m sorry, Charles.”

This gets a blink, startled flickering of eyelashes like stormclouds in the wind. The expanse of bed, beneath them, is very soft. “Erik—”

“I’m not apologizing because you’re hurt or because I feel guilty or because you said it first.” He runs his thumb over the back of that beloved hand, slowly. Relearning all the shapes, bone and tendon and freckled skin.

“I’m apologizing because I was selfish, that first time. I was only thinking about how badly I wanted to be with you, to show the world how proud I was to be with you, to fight all the battles…but I’d never even asked you whether you wanted to get married. And even though I hadn’t…you didn’t say no. You asked me to wait, for you to finish grad school, for you to feel safe…I should’ve listened. I’m sorry.”

“Erik,” Charles says again, eyes enormous in the indigo shades of evening. The room’s shadowy and secret and dim, built just for the two of them, plus all the pillows.

“Hush. Still apologizing. Tonight, when you kissed me…that was perfect, Charles. You, and me…and that’s not about the rest of the world, and it’s not about the cause, it’s not a statement—I mean it _was_ a statement, of course it was, it was your statement—but me kissing you, that was about us. I proposed to you five years ago because I was in love with you and I couldn’t stand the thought of ever losing you. But I did lose you. I might’ve lost you for— And I’ve never stopped loving you. And I’m sorry I haven’t been telling you that every day.”

And Charles squeezes his hand, very tightly. Whispers back, “Erik?”

“…yes?”

“You never lost me.”

“I—”

“I’ve learned, I think, some things about hiding.” That midnight-ocean gaze is very clear, and steady, and sure. “I’ve learned that I don’t want to, anymore. I’m still here. I’m here and I can walk again—all right, not over any marathon distances, but I can—and I know what I want and I want you. I love you. Can we…”

“…try again?”

“Yes?”

Erik considers this suggestion for very little time. Then says, “Charles? And before you say anything else, I love you.”

“And I love you. What is it?”

“You can walk, again…and you said you want me…and you told everyone in our graduating class that you’ve been keeping me satisfied in bed…”

“Yes? Also, I plan to demonstrate that fact to you very soon. If not tonight, tomorrow night.”

“Only if you’re not in pain. But otherwise yes. But I wanted to ask you a question. Can you sit up?”

“Yes, but why…”

“Because.” He slides off the bed. Gets down on one knee. Looks up. Charles gasps out loud, and actually claps the hand that’s not being support over his mouth, muffling the sound. “Erik, you’re not…”

“I am, yes.” He takes a deep breath. “I didn’t ask you properly the first time. So I’m asking you now. I know it won’t be easy, we’ll have to figure out how to make this work, you in school and me in Washington and maybe I can telecommute some days, I promise we’ll work it out together this time if you say yes, I’ll listen to what you actually say, and I’ll give you massages whenever you ask and I very much do want to have sex with you and we’ll figure that out too, we can do all of that, we can do anything together, and I’d be honored if you’d walk down the aisle at my side, and—Charles, I love you. Will you marry me?”

“Erik,” Charles says, and grabs his hands with astonishing forcefulness, tugging him back up off his knees until they end up tumbling over the bed, joyously safe in each other’s arms, “yes!”

 


End file.
